The problem of fire fighting is one of the most actual problems of our time because despite the great technological progress made by mankind the fire still causes a lot of disasters and catastrophes. Since ancient times the situation has hardly changed for as soon as fire appeared in human's life it brought not only warm and better opportunities to survive but also it brought a great danger that people very often couldn't cope with. Logically, the most progressive part of mankind tried to do their best to solve and, certainly, to prevent this problem. As human race evolved the technology evolved too. The most up-to-date machines and technologies have replaced old means of fire protection. And in the future man is supposed to be completely replaced by special machines and devices that will have remote control and won't need man's presence. So, it is evident that scientists and researchers tend to make fire fighting less dangerous and more controllable.
But, unfortunately, sometimes enormous territories may be in fire and at first it seems impossible to stop it. Exactly for such cases aircraft fire fighting vehicles are used. Also it is necessary to underline that with the development of airplane and space industry appeared the danger of fire on the board of planes and space vehicles or even stations. So there is a large sphere where aircraft fire protection is needed. This branch of fire fighting doesn't have a very long history in comparison with others and we can say that it is the most modern and highly technological industry which deals with fire fighting.
Actually, we can estimate that aircraft rescue fire fighting vehicles appeared as soon as airplane industry appeared. Anyway, at least the idea of such vehicles appeared on the dawn of 'the space era' because as usual any new thing causes new problems so airplanes made people think about safety of flights and the possible usage of new kind of vehicles for the people's sake.

As for the history of aircraft rescue fire fighting vehicles their necessity became quite obvious at the period of World War II when the problem of air crashes and aircraft fire fighting increased to the great dimension because appeared such problems as the problem of the flights' safety, as well as the problem of airports' safety and some other correlating problems. Thus, when we speak about aircraft rescue fire fighting we must take into account two dimensions: airports' fire security and aircraft rescue fire fighting vehicles themselves. A great experience in this sphere have the USA because at this period of time the rescue services were not developed well enough to provide the necessary help to people who were crashed and needed emergent aid. As a result a lot of people died though on the condition that fire fighting services had all essential equipment. Unfortunately, this extremely negative experience was practically forgotten after the war and existing systems were not effective enough to prevent serious fire accidents. The analysis made by the Airline Pilot Association in 1968 discovered that the majority of American commercial airports were not appropriately equipped and the only way out to avoid an enormous damage in the case of fire was the appeal to local municipal fire fighting services.

Such situation couldn't remain unchanged. That is why since 1947 they had begun to develop airline commercial industry and at this moment it became obvious that the war experience may be used in civil aircraft rescue fire fighting and they had begun to implement the equipment of the war period. But due to the fact that some equipment and technologies were secret it was very difficult to rediscover those technologies that were used only for military purposes. At that time, airports, both commercial and military, traditionally used protein foam and bulk carbon dioxide as combined primary agents. The characteristics of agent were borrowed from the war experience and were technically limited because of the lack of ARFF vehicles of necessary type that were at the disposal of airports. The formula was calculated from the average amount of agent that was known from the experience of past accidents and the size of aircraft and maximum gross take off weight was the most important things for categorization here. The quantity of agent that was needed depended on the size of the largest aircraft that could land at the airport.

It seems strange enough but despite the fact that the formula was known in early post war years but it was kept in secret and couldn't be published. It was finally promulgated only in 1951 and had only a status of suggestions. Only in the 1970-es it was officially recommended to use in everyday fire fighting practice and only in 1988 it had got the status of the standard. Later on the International Civil Aviation Organization worked out a number of suggestions for aircraft rescue fire fighting requirements. Periodically these requirements had been modernized and improved. Also there were created special work groups that had to control and to focus the development of technologies on the more scientific basis. These working groups could test the equipment and suggest their improvements that would be necessary to make.

Eventually, there appeared a formula for determining agent quantities and it became an international standard that exists even nowadays. The principle idea of this formula is based on the fact that fuselage integrity must be kept unchangeable to provide the survival of passengers or crew members. The tests demonstrated that it could be done only by keeping fire at least 50 feet away from fuselage and that people could have less than a minute to save themselves and to cope with the fire. These standard data were projected to different types of aircraft of different size. It is quite natural that one need a very good knowledge of the subject and a great experience to make such calculations as well as one must test it in order not to make a mistake. That is why specialists decided to classify all aircraft to avoid this problem that any airport could have. Thus, all aircraft were grouped into eight categories and since that time and now on the length of fuselage has become the principle factor that has replaced gross weight.
Nowadays one of the main problems that scientists and engineers try to resolve is the problem of the safety of fire fighters, the safety of our environment and nature and, finally, the last but not the least problem is the problem of water waste. Engineers work on different apparatus that could correspond to all characteristic mentioned above. Among the latest machines we can name Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) extinguishing systems, a No Foam Kit and others.
As for AFFF extinguishing systems we can say that current design standards include both overhead and low level AFFF extinguishing systems. The overhead AFFF system typically consists of standard closed head sprinklers that are zoned within areas defined by draft curtains. In some existing installations, the overhead systems are open head deluge systems the low level system typically consists of multiple high flow monitors. The low level AFFF and overhead deluge sprinkle systems are activated by separate detection systems.

Due to high cost incurred from damage of aircraft and electronics resulting from accidental discharges of the overhead AFFF system, researchers are exploring alternate suppression techniques. They propose the approach that would replace the overhead foam suppression system with a closed-head water sprinkler system and it would permit to minimize the time delay in activating the overhead system through the use of quick response sprinklers. At the same time test showed that a low level AFFF system alone could achieve rapid fire control and extinguishment without the use of overhead sprinklers.

But nowadays scientists are working on safer and better systems that could replace those which were mentioned above. One of such innovative and very prospective system is No Foam Kit. A No Foam Kit has been developed and demonstrated in order to replace Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) with a benign, biodegradable dye or water mixture that eliminates the need to release AFFF for operational maintenance and routine checks. The use of the kit produces a waste stream that can be assimilated by nature and can be recycled easily at recycling plants, thus producing a complete reduction of the problematic AFFF wastewater stream.
For the Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting (ARFF) vehicle is currently a main line of defence at shore-base airfields facilities these vehicles must be periodically tested, used for training, and maintained to provide for appropriate operational readiness. The vehicles use an AFFF for fire suppression. Despite its wide use and effectiveness for fire fighting, AFFF poses an environmental risk because of its resistance to biodegradation, its toxicity, and its high Biological Oxygen Demand and Chemical Oxygen Demand. In addition, AFFF has been prohibited for discharge to the ground and treatment plants at many facilities due to its non-biodegradable nature, its extreme foaming capacity, and its tendency to upset biological treatment systems. The combination of these issues has created a conflict of needs with regard to meeting operational requirements in the protection of life and property and the stewardship of the environment.

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